Plato’s "Parmenides" presents the modern reader with a puzzle. Noted for being the most difficult of Platonic dialogues, it is also one of the most influential. This new edition of the work includes the Greek text on facing pages, with an English translation by Arnold Hermann in collaboration with Sylvana Chrysakopoulou. Hermann's Introduction provides an overview and commentary aimed at scholars and first time readers alike.

Der Beziehung zwischen Religion, sozialen Strukturen und politischen Institutionen kam in menschlichen Gesellschaften seit jeher eine fundamentale Rolle zu. Die hier versammelten Aufsätze erkunden mögliche Wege, wie die philosophischen Konzeptualisierungen von Gott, Göttern und dem Göttlichen in der antiken Welt mit traditionellen religiösen Praktiken und Institutionen interagieren, ebenso wie mit nicht-philosophischen Ansichten des Göttlichen. Dabei wird ein Bogen von der „Rationalisierung“ des Göttlichen durch die frühen griechischen Philosophen bis hin zur Konzeption der Toleranz gespannt, die sich bei Augustinus finden lässt. (...) Untersucht werden Schriften von Platon, der als Erster in der Geschichte die Worte ‚Theologie‘ und ‚Atheismus‘ prägte, und Aristoteles mit seinem intellektuell geprägten Blick auf Gott. Der Band ist besonders wertvoll für Interessenten der Geistesgeschichte, politischen Theorie, Religionsgeschichte und der klassischen Antike. Mit Beiträgen von Sylvana V. Chrysakopoulou | Francesca Eustacchi | Silvia Gastaldi | Giovanni Giorgini | Christoph Horn | Elena Irrera | Jakub Jinek | Manuel Knoll | Maria Liatsi | Francisco L. Lisi | Alberto Maffi | Maurizio Migliori | Josef Moural | Nurdane Şimşek | Bernat Torres | Denis Walter. (shrink)

t. 1. Dialog s V. V. Davydovym -- t. 2. Nereshennye problemy razvivai︠u︡shchego obrazovanii︠a︡.

A compelling portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft that shows the intimate connections between her life and work Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, first published in 1792, is a work of enduring relevance in women's rights advocacy. However, as Sylvana Tomaselli shows, a full understanding of Wollstonecraft’s thought is possible only through a more comprehensive appreciation of Wollstonecraft herself, as a philosopher and moralist who deftly tackled major social and political issues and the arguments of such figures (...) as Edmund Burke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith. Reading Wollstonecraft through the lens of the politics and culture of her own time, this book restores her to her rightful place as a major eighteenth-century thinker, reminding us why her work still resonates today. The book’s format echoes one that Wollstonecraft favored in Thoughts on the Education of Daughters: short essays paired with concise headings. Under titles such as “Painting,” “Music,” “Memory,” “Property and Appearance,” and “Rank and Luxury,” Tomaselli explores not only what Wollstonecraft enjoyed and valued, but also her views on society, knowledge and the mind, human nature, and the problem of evil—and how a society based on mutual respect could fight it. The resulting picture of Wollstonecraft reveals her as a particularly engaging author and an eloquent participant in enduring social and political concerns. Drawing us into Wollstonecraft’s approach to the human condition and the debates of her day, Wollstonecraft ultimately invites us to consider timeless issues with her, so that we can become better attuned to the world as she saw it then, and as we might wish to see it now. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article offers some reflections on the importance Adam Smith accorded to luck in The Wealth of Nations. While the place of moral luck in The Theory of Moral Sentiments has been the subject of some scholarly attention, this has not been the case for luck in his best-known work. It focuses on what Smith thought particularly striking about our estimation of our own good fortune and argues that it accentuated the need for trustworthiness and trusted friends.

Together with David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft thought modern commercial society exacerbated the psychological need of most of their members to seek the approbation of others. Like them, she thought the better part of her contemporaries were caught in a hall of mirrors and sought to be esteemed for their appearance. In her view the contrivances this entailed distorted individual characters, relationships, and society as a whole. Though she partook of a European wide philosophical debate, she (...) came to it from the very unique perspective of a largely self-taught English woman and in a large part from what might be meaningfully conceived as a Platonist perspective. In examining how this might be so, this chapter does not seek to make Wollstonecraft a Platonist as opposed to, say, an Aristotelian, much less a Christian. Her moral and political critique made her eclectic in her use of ideas and argument. She seems however to have been inspired by conceptions of the soul, love, truth and virtue that have their origins in Platonism. Considering her in this light provides greater insights into her philosophy of mind as well as her social and political views and provides a greater understanding of the continued importance of Platonism in the latter part of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

The long eighteenth century was a good time for history and historians. This article considers one of its most original genres, conjectural history, and of one of conjectural history’s most interesting subjects, woman. What made the conjectural history of woman most interesting was not only that it brought together all the elements that were themselves the subjects of theoretical histories, such as language, the arts and sciences, society, religion, and man, but continued to matter politically well into the nineteenth century. (...) Indeed, one might argue that it continues to shape understandings of what it means to be civilized to this day. Following some observations on some of the challenges such a history presented to its practitioners, the essay turns to Engels’s The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State: in the Light of the Researches of Lewis H. Morgan and his contestation of the eighteenth-century view of the history of woman. It ends with some reflections on the importance of revisiting such histories. (shrink)

David A. Bell and Hugo Drochon’s foreword prepares us well for Gauchet’s Robespierre. We are not to expect a biography, any form of preamble, nor footnotes, archival discoveries, nor wrestling with...

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 20, Issue 4, Page 847-849, July 2012.

Review of Nancy Hirschmann's Gender, Class and Freedom in Modern Political Theory.

Standard models of adolescent risk taking posit that the cognitive abilities of adolescents and adults are equivalent, and that increases in risk taking that occur during adolescence are the result of socio emotional differences in impulsivity, sensation seeking, and lack of self-control. Fuzzy-trace theory incorporates these socio emotional differences. However, it predicts that there are also cognitive differences between adolescents and adults, specifically that there are developmental increases in gist-based intuition that reflects understanding. Gist understanding, as opposed to verbatim-based analysis, (...) generally has been hypothesized to have a protective effect on risk taking in adolescence. Gist understanding is also an essential element of informed consent regarding risks in medical decision- making. Evidence thus supports the argument that adolescents’ status as mature minors should be treated as an exception rather than a presumption, because accuracy in verbatim analysis is not mature gist understanding. Use of the exception should be accompanied by medical experts’ input on the bottom-line gist of risks involved in treatment. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to analyze the variability of the "Self-made-man" idea in the context of the Christian Middle Ages in its primarily historical and philosophical presentation. Research is based on the historical and philosophical analysis of the medieval philosophy presented foremost by the works of Aurelius Augustine, P. Abelard, Thomas Aquinas, and also by the modern researches of this epoch. Theoretical basis. Historical, comparative, and hermeneutic methods became fundamental for this research. Originality. The conducted analysis allowed to (...) draw a conclusion that, despite the still existing view of the Middle Ages as a kind of an ideological gap in the formation of the self-determination idea, the Christian philosophy of this period not only does not reject but also gives essentially the universal character of the ancient intention to recognize the individual’s right to self-determination and self-government, makes it not only religiously acceptable but also obligatory. Conclusions. Despite to general theocentrism, providentialism and fatalism of Christian medieval philosophy and culture in general, at its epicenter there is a man of a special type, focused on preserving spiritual autonomy and identity in the social dimensions of their existence, and at the same time, on personal responsibility for their own destiny. Such focus became a logical and somewhat unexpected result of the complex interaction of numerous factors of medieval culture, as well as the ideas and intentions inherited from Antiquity. In particular, the idea that a person who does not act freely cannot be morally responsible for what he does, as well as the intentions of the ancient sage to autonomy, autarky, and apoliticism. In the Middle Ages, this intention became essentially universal, as it became a right, even an obligation of every Christian to be free, at least from the worldly, in determining and realizing his own destiny. The gradual compromise recognition that personal salvation is possible only as a result of synergy, i.e. the co-participation of God’s grace and human freedom, legitimizes and strengthens its focus on active personal efforts and personal responsibility for one’s own salvation, in fact for one’s own destiny. All this in historical perspective was found in its radicalized and purified from all sorts of mystical and religious layers of expression in the idea of "Self-made-man". (shrink)

The purpose. Critical social philosophy of education strives to provide a radical critique of existing models of education in the so-called Western models of democracy, creating progressive alternative models. In this context, the proposed integrative metatheory, which is based on classical and modern sources, concepts, aims for a comprehensive understanding and reconstruction of the phenomenon of education. One of the main tasks in the sphere of education’s democratization today, therefore, is to bring to education the results of restructuring and democratization (...) of the society, to reflect changes in conditions of life and thinking, experience and transformation of subjectivity in the context of the technological revolution and globalization. Methodology. The critical social theory, which developed in the framework of contemporary neo-Marxism, indicates the need for a thorough analysis of society, however, unlike other theoretical concepts and research programs in order to analyze not a fixation and a statement of the existing social givens. On the contrary, critical analysis of society involves the identification of existing antagonistic, alienating factors that distort public communication.The subject of social analysis is the whole sphere of human and non-human nature, which interacts a person depend on it, the whole system of relations between society and nature, society and man, which is covered by the historical practice of conscious – "praxis". The representative of "pure science" isn't the learning, research subject. He is a public a person, which is the totality of all social definitions included in society and its constituent individuals. For such a "total subject" Object of interest is not something external; on the contrary, the latter appears as a product of his own activity. The scientific novelty examines trends in educational institutions and models of globalizing society in the context of our particular relationship of education and society, man and the state, and processes. The research and systematic analysis of neoliberal reforms at the level of society in general and education in particular are conducted. It examines substantive, structural and functional characteristics of the concept of «critical social philosophy of education» in the context of institutional tendencies of social life, as well as forms and possibilities of its methodological application. It consider a model of «critical social philosophy of education», as embodied in the programs of social development and learning, which are primarily designed to teach people how to lead an independent and original research themselves, society and knowledge systems. However, it is proved that the models and programs should not be cut off from any individual and the collective system of moral and social values, theoretical and applied training, nor from further use of the acquired values, norms and skills in everyday life, science, or in production, sphere of all social institutions. Conclusions. Critical philosophical, educational, pedagogical-psychological surprisingly theory, its models and concepts seek to redefine public and private and the public mind. Based on these grounds, in the future, it allows philosophy of education to develop a more inclusive philosophical vision of education, to apply directly to the problems of democratization and changes in social relations in the direction of equality and social justice in the field of education. The point of view of socio-philosophical and philosophical-еducational, pedagogical-psychological, normative understanding and social critics also requires the use of active efforts in the reconstruuction of education and society, the social vision of what education and human life can be and what their specific limitations in existing societies. (shrink)

The purpose. Critical social philosophy of education strives to provide a radical critique of existing models of education in the so-called Western models of democracy, creating progressive alternative models. In this context, the proposed integrative metatheory, which is based on classical and modern sources, concepts, aims for a comprehensive understanding and reconstruction of the phenomenon of education. One of the main tasks in the sphere of education’s democratization today, therefore, is to bring to education the results of restructuring and democratization (...) of the society, to reflect changes in conditions of life and thinking, experience and transformation of subjectivity in the context of the technological revolution and globalization. Methodology. The critical social theory, which developed in the framework of contemporary neo-Marxism, indicates the need for a thorough analysis of society, however, unlike other theoretical concepts and research programs in order to analyze not a fixation and a statement of the existing social givens. On the contrary, critical analysis of society involves the identification of existing antagonistic, alienating factors that distort public communication.The subject of social analysis is the whole sphere of human and non-human nature, which interacts a person depend on it, the whole system of relations between society and nature, society and man, which is covered by the historical practice of conscious – "praxis". The representative of "pure science" isn't the learning, research subject. He is a public a person, which is the totality of all social definitions included in society and its constituent individuals. For such a "total subject" Object of interest is not something external; on the contrary, the latter appears as a product of his own activity. The scientific novelty examines trends in educational institutions and models of globalizing society in the context of our particular relationship of education and society, man and the state, and processes. The research and systematic analysis of neoliberal reforms at the level of society in general and education in particular are conducted. It examines substantive, structural and functional characteristics of the concept of «critical social philosophy of education» in the context of institutional tendencies of social life, as well as forms and possibilities of its methodological application. It consider a model of «critical social philosophy of education», as embodied in the programs of social development and learning, which are primarily designed to teach people how to lead an independent and original research themselves, society and knowledge systems. However, it is proved that the models and programs should not be cut off from any individual and the collective system of moral and social values, theoretical and applied training, nor from further use of the acquired values, norms and skills in everyday life, science, or in production, sphere of all social institutions. Conclusions. Critical philosophical, educational, pedagogical-psychological surprisingly theory, its models and concepts seek to redefine public and private and the public mind. Based on these grounds, in the future, it allows philosophy of education to develop a more inclusive philosophical vision of education, to apply directly to the problems of democratization and changes in social relations in the direction of equality and social justice in the field of education. The point of view of socio-philosophical and philosophical-еducational, pedagogical-psychological, normative understanding and social critics also requires the use of active efforts in the reconstruuction of education and society, the social vision of what education and human life can be and what their specific limitations in existing societies. (shrink)

Purpose. The research is aimed at understanding the philosophical and journalistic heritage of M. Scheler during 1914-1919. "The philosophy of war" is regarded as the middle link between the phenomenological and anthropological stages of its philosophical evolution. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study is the philosophical legacy of Max Scheler, as well as the work of domestic and Western researchers devoted to this issue. Problems of Weltkriegsphilosophie become comprehensible based on the historical, logical and comparative principles of historical (...) and philosophical analysis, which allowed to theoretically reconstruct the cultural and historical context, philosophical sources and ideological intentions of the German philosopher. Originality. For the first time in domestic historical and philosophical thought, it proved that the works by Max Scheler of the First World War played an outstanding role in the formation of philosophical anthropology as a separate philosophical trend. Conclusions. The basis of the Weltkriegsphilosophie by Max Scheler is the philosophical comprehension of the war in which the thinker tries to see the high sacral meaning, where the sacrifices that the nation brings to the altar of victory are not in vain: the nation is rallying this sacrifice, its readiness for it. According to Scheler, war is the most effective means of forming the so-called "love communities", to which he refers combat brotherhood, family and nation as a "collective personality", which recognizes itself through war. The philosopher is disappointed to some part with militaristic enthusiasm in his later military journalistic works and calls for a spiritual and moral renewal of Europe, fed from Christian roots. At the heart of this renewal should be the principle of personal solidarity, based on the Christian idea of love. However, Catholic universalism is an insufficient means for the formation of a "love community" and a new man who is co-creator of God that constitutes the main core of the philosophical anthropology of Max Scheler, which emerges in the 20s of the twentieth century. Based on this, the article affirms the existence in Sheler’s works of an intermediate stage between his phenomenology and philosophical anthropology – Weltkriegsphilosophie. (shrink)

"This book is an augmented and updated translation by the author of Theorie des Subjekts: Subjectiviteat und Identiteat zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne, Teubingen, Francke-UTB, 2010 (3rd ed.)"--Title page verso.

It is particularly fitting for this philosophical journal to carry a review of Moses Mendelssohn's Philosophical Writings, since Mendelssohn himself made use of dialogues to discuss a number of subjects, most notably the sublime and the naive. Indeed, this volume's second essay is simply entitled "Dialogues," while the first, "On Sentiments," takes the form of an exchange of letters. The two essays which constitute Part I of the Philosophical Writings were first published in 1755 within a few months of each (...) other. "Rhapsody or Additions to the Letters on Sentiments", "On the Main Principles of the Fine Arts and Sciences", "On the Sublime and the Naïve in the Fine Sciences", and "On Probability" constitute Part II of the work, which was first published as a whole in 1761, and in a revised edition in 1771. Thus, apart from "Rhapsody" which was newly written, Philosophische Schriften brought together works already known to the public. The present translation contains two further essays, "On the Ability to Know, the Ability to Feel, and the Ability to Desire" and "On the Question: What Does to Enlighten Mean?". These are preceded by "On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences", on which the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences bestowed a prize, making Kant's entry, Inquiry into the Distinctness of the Fundamental Principles of Natural Theology and Morals, a close runner-up. (shrink)

As Archer argues, recent developmental data on human physical aggression support the sexual selection hypothesis. However, sex differences are largely due to males on a chronic trajectory of aggression. Maternal characteristics of these males suggest that, in societies with low levels of physical violence, females with a history of behavior problems largely contribute to maintenance of physical aggression sex differences.

Essays on philosophy and intellectual history, focusing in particular on John Locke.